please note this post is not by Jay Clapp Photography but from the photography news at the guardian for your viewing pleasure please feel free to use the share buttons at the bottom.
My friend Margaret Harker, who has died aged 93, had a long association with the Royal Photographic Society and, from 1958 to 1960, served as its first female president. Margaret was the first female professor of photography in the UK. A distinguished photographic historian, she was instrumental in the development of photographic education.
She was born Margaret Florence Harker in Southport. Her father was a doctor and a photography enthusiast and, with her parents’ support, she moved to London to study photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) between 1940 and 1943. She began to work as an architectural photographer, contributing to the National Buildings Record from its establishment in 1941. More than 1,000 of her negatives are held in its successor body at English Heritage.
Margaret started lecturing at the Regent Street Polytechnic’s School of Photography from 1943. She became head in 1959 and was responsible for the introduction of the first degree courses in photography in the UK – a BSc in photographic science in 1967 and a BA in the photographic arts in 1972. She was appointed professor in 1972.
Joining the Royal Photographic Society in 1941, she served on its council from 1951 to 1976 and chaired the applied photographic distinction panel, assessing work to be awarded distinctions from the society, from 1951 until 1992. Interested in photographic history, she became honorary curator of the society’s collection of historic photographs. This led to her books The Linked Ring: The Secession Movement in Photography, 1892-1910 (published in 1979) and Henry Peach Robinson, Master of Photographic Art, 1830-1901 (published in 1988).
Margaret was a governor at the London College of Printing and a trustee at the Photographers’ Gallery. The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now the National Media Museum), in Bradford, asked her to serve as a member of its advisory committee, which she did from 1983 to 1997.
Although Margaret at times could appear formidable, she was a kind and generous person. She had a wicked sense of humour and a very sprightly mind. By the 1980s, as work pressures reduced, she was more relaxed and informal – especially so when entertaining at her home and beautiful garden in Sussex.
Margaret married Richard Farrand in 1972. He died in 1982.
via Art and design: Photography | guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/mar/13/margaret-harker-obituary Thanks for reading Jay
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